I had been to Alaska once already. It was on my way to Japan. That time, in early March, Anchorage had greeted me with a blizzard. As I made my way from the British Airways plane to the airport terminal building, an icy ground wind kept my shoes filled with snow. Inside the terminal it was warm and, in a semiconscious state after what had been a sleepless flight across the Atlantic Ocean, I gave myself over to dreaming of the blossoming sakura of Japan while I observed with half-attention the small, local planes, of Anchorage. In their struggle against the snowdrifts and gusts of wind, they were like fragile dragonflies.
When, three years later, I received an invitation to present a lecture from the Alaska Council of Foreign Affairs, I accepted without any particular enthusiasm. I flew to Alaska in a lousy state of mind, the more so as I was expected to make two stopovers from the time I left Hartford – first in Chicago and then in Seattle – both also being places I had already visited. It was October. Not the best time of year. I wasn’t expecting anything out of the ordinary. However, a new kind of wonder awaited me. Zina, a fervent admirer of the well-know Russian feminist Alexandra Kollontai, had volunteered to be my interpreter for my lecture. Our mutual interest in Kollontai was enough to ensure our interest in each other. Zina’s interpreting was lively and fluid and her natural flare for drama endeared her to the audience. It was thanks to her that I too felt in good form. All was an indisputable success. Following the talks, Zina and I struck up a conversation and she enthusiastically volunteered to acquaint me more intimately with Alaska. I invited her to come to my hotel the next day.
I had met you only once
Before this time,
But you walked into my room
At the Captain Cook
Smiling as you might to an old friend.
And I caught myself feeling
Excited by love.
I marveled to myself –
In far-away Alaska I would
Least of all have expected warmth:
These tender wafts of feeling
Running the length of my body.
I went to stand by the window,
Observing you talking on the phone,
And the same tender currents of feeling
Flowed invisibly between us –
From you back to me,
Penetrating the depth of my being.
You replaced the receiver and
Approached the window.
Together we looked out at the mountains,
A chain of snow-capped peaks
Stretching the length of the horizon.
Then I said in a business-like tone:
“It’s time we got started”,
Thus failing to learn
what you were thinking…
After our visit to the Women’s Center we drove to Zina’ s place for lunch. I felt so cozy sitting there with Zina at the kitchen table. A broad window looked out onto the terrace.
You sit across from me
and your gaze excites me;
I want to reach out my hand to you,
to touch my fingers to your wrist.
I tell you that I am
happy
to be able to speak Russian with you
(no one except you
could even hope to understand me…),
I tell you how happy I am
to be addressing you with my Russian “ty”
(instead of the cold-sounding English “you”
– a very passionate Russian “ty”!)
You blush at my words,
you become flushed with the faint blush of
embarrassment? excitement? joy?
And this delicate coloration,
this warm coloration
radiating off your skin
draws me still closer.
In short, in Zina’s face I saw and fell in love with Alaska herself, which, like Zina, had once been Russian but was now American.
I kiss your hands,
my beloved,
my Alaska.
How I cherish
your sunrises
with one lone star on the horizon,
your sunsets, their unblemished expanse,
your winds
which whistle between the panes of window glass,
your naked strands of birch,
your autumn’s vibrant shades.
Your verdant scents, aroma of ripe berries
and the sea, smells
familiar to me from Russia –
how much they awaken in me.
Love for you surges in my veins
in such warm waves,
such sweet waves.
I kiss you on the lips,
my beloved Alaska.
I offer gratitude for your color,
this flame of sky now over my head.
How am I to accept our parting…
surely it will be forever.
Never again to see your mountains,
peaks newly dusted with snow,
nor to hear your songs
so full of gentleness and passion,
nor experience again
your firm embrace…
After several days, Zina accompanied me to the Anchorage airport, assuring me that I would some day return to Alaska. I offered her some lines as a parting gift.
You restored the poetry in my soul,
poetry which had long been struggling
to find expression.
I should have kissed you, that this
poetry become the more permanent,
but I did not kiss you,
afraid of tainting the magic of these new feelings,
so fragile…
I had wanted to invite you to my room
on the last evening
and go with you to the athletic club
at the hotel,
where there is a spring of boiling hot water
like the geyser I bathed in on Kamchatka.
I had wanted to drink tea with you,
while we watched the crimson sunset,
and confess to you my feelings.
I had wanted to stay with you until
morning
and did not do this…
I wonder: would you have come over or not?
It was a long time before Zina wrote again, giving her mind over to her work as a feminist/psychologist. I kept busy as well, but could not help the feelings of remorse that continually surfaced.
It started to seem as though the magic were alive only in Alaska.
Somewhere out there thousands of miles away
you are lying on your couch
by the fireplace,
Alaska snows surrounding you.
Everyday, normal life
has you penned in:
breakfast, the car, your job,
patients, questionnaires, acquaintances,
your office with its shelves, mostly of books
on psychology.
Do you have time to pause and remember
that somewhere out there a lost soul
waits full of sorrow and hope?
A soul that you encountered by chance
along the way…
Zina sent me several marvelous letters, but it was obvious that a correspondence was not enough. After several months I made a tour of Canada. I was closer territorially to Zina, although by this time my feelings had developed further into something almost abstract. It was no longer so much Zina I wanted. I wanted to see the soul of Alaska.
Or was it the soul of the eternal sister lost in Lethe I wanted?
My island dwelling friend,
How keenly I feel the void
Here on the continent left by your voice,
Your soft-spoken voice,
Soothed and deep
as nighttime in Alaska.
It has lulled me to sleep,
Soothed me as a soft wind
It that valley between the mountains
Where we wandered together…
If you remember .
After all, so many years have lapsed
Since that time,
The carefree days of our youth,
My island dwelling friend.
Not long ago Zina called me from Anchorage, but I despise the telephone for its illusion of intimacy.
(Leithe – forgetfulness – River of Hades whose water causes forgetfulness (Greek mythology). Webster’s dictionary).